So, I went and picked up all my stuff from the fair. Ended up with 18 ribbons – most of them blue – and a nice little tidy sum in prize money. The one thing that surprised me the most was that the crocheted ABC afghan won first place for “Crocheted Afghans”. Now, granted, the afghan is cute and it’s a fun pattern – but really, I haven’t crocheted in YEARS. No, really, YEARS, so it was really, really surprising to me that this thing won anything, let alone first place in the Afghan category. 

Val was kind enough to take a picture of it for me, since I refused to pay their extortion admission fee to get into the fair. 

Very cool, right? especially considering I don’t even know how to crochet very well. 

The mittens won first place, as did the daisy hat and the alligator scarf and the green lace scarf. The girl’s sweater won second, and most everything else won, as well. The sewed outfits, the orange set, the adult hat….everything got first or second. 

And now I’m up to my armpits in ribbons. Which is nice, but I would like Paul to make me some kind of frame or something so I can hang them in the sewing room – that would be nice, right? 

I gave the alligator scarf and the daisy hat and the ABC afghan to Val. Just because I love her kids. 

And I made a real quick set for a friend who had a new baby boy. This entire set takes one night to make (big needles, big yarn – gotta love that). 

And now to decide what to make for next year and the fair – always the hardest part. I may even try crocheting another afghan – although I don’t expect lightning to strike twice on THAT matter.

Oh – and Paul and I did go to the fair the night before it officially closed (free admission, again, but, again, the Domestic Arts building wasn’t open.) But when we were walking into the gate I saw Nathaniel Marshall – he of “American Idol” fame. His pants were REALLY tight. And he has blonde hair now. Looks good. But his pants were REALLY, REALLY tight. 

In Other News: Val had a shit and run at her house. Funny, huh? Someone went into her driveway, squatted and took a shit in between her cars. They even took off their dirty underwear and threw them in her neighbors yard. Classy.

And I guess they didn’t bring along any reading material, because they got bored and fiddled with the valve stem on her husband’s SUV for something to occupy their time and let all the air out of the tire.

You know, you have to wonder about people – you just do.

In OTHER other news, there is apparently a new sub-culture blossoming in Malone. They are an offshoot of the “Goths”, only these kids call themselves “Vamps”.  Now, I’m thinking that this is a direct result of the whole “Twilight” thing. But I’m definitely not in the target demographic of Twilight, so I don’t know for sure. But these “Vamps” have a neat initiation trick – they have to drink the blood of animals. So they’ve been killing farm animals in the area. Last week they slaughtered a poor Llama. Which is horrid. Poor llama. You can get WOOL from llama’s. You can’t go around killing wool producing species. That’s just wrong.

CHATEAUGAY, N.Y. — State police are investigating the shooting deaths of several sheep and a llama at a farm near the Canadian border in northern New York.

Kirby Selkirk, owner of Kirbside Gardens in the Franklin County town of Chateaugay, said at least three sheep were shot early Friday morning, with two killed and a third later euthanized. He said a llama — named Pepe — was also shot and killed.

Selkirk’s wife, Jo Ellen Saumer, said she’s still in shock.

“I’m extremely sad. The llama was a gift from my husband. That was a part of the deal, that if my husband could get sheep, I could get a llama because I always wanted a llama. It’s a member of our family to me that’s missing.”

Police are looking for suspects, but have not determined a motive in the shooting.

Neighbors reported hearing about five gunshots at about 3 a.m. Friday.

Selkirk said it’s possible other sheep were shot, but he won’t know until he finishes checking and counting the roughly 300 animals. The sheep and llama were shot inside a pen where they’re kept at night to protect them from coyotes.

“Many other livestock owners are absolutely horrified this happened and they’ve volunteered to contribute towards a reward,” said Saumier.

Besides the financial loss of losing the animals, Saumier said her llama was a special part of the farm. She hopes a reward will help catch those responsible and help bring justice for Pepe.

“We lost a family member,” she said.

Now, there are only rumors that the animal attacks are related to these “Vamp” kids, but there have been other farm animal attacks in the area and they were being treated as “isolated incidents” until someone got the bright idea that, you know, these killings might all be related.

So, have you ever heard of “Vamps”? Do they have “Vamps” in your area? Do they kill llamas and farm animals?

You know you are getting old when entire segments of the population spring up around you and you have no idea. I was just starting to get used to “Goths” and they come up with a new one.

And have you ever had a shit and run at your house? Because that’s a new one on me, too.

God, I’m getting old.

Ok – so what’s the thing about naming kids after stupid descriptive adjectives? Did we run out of stupid place names as baby names? Are there too many Brooklyn’s and Dakota’s and Ireland’s so now we have to start imposing “adjective traits” on our children – hoping that they will aspire to be “Heavenly” or “Delicious” or “Desirous?” 

OK – so I talked to my brother this morning. He has a wife that’s due to give birth in September. I haven’t talked to him in a while – at least since the last ultrasound. I asked him “So??? Is it a boy or  girl??” It’s a girl (of course – I have all nieces yet could only give birth to boys
myself. that’s another rant…)

So, my next question was “What are you going to name her?”

Now, let’s remember here that I already have ONE sibling who was ignorant enough to name her kid “Precious”. And everyone in my family KNOWS how stupid I think that name is. Babies shouldn’t be named after stupid descriptive adjectives. Really. It’s dumb. Yes, your baby might be “Splendid” or “Angelic” or “Endearing” or “Adorable” but for God’s sake, don’t NAME her that. When you give your baby daughter some goofy adjective name you might as well install a stripper pole in the playpen and get her started early.

So – what did my brother say he was naming his new baby??

Scenic.

Yes, Scenic.

Scenic Lynn, in fact.

So, after my head exploded I said to him “Scenic? Well, I guess that’s a name you couldn’t OVERLOOK.”

Or maybe she just had a womb with a view.

Good God.

So we went to the fair yesterday afternoon. But I still don’t know if I won anything, because the Domestic Arts building was locked up tight. fuck. They did all the judging yesterday, and **usually**, we can go on Friday afternoon and kind of “peek” in the building while judging is happening and see what won. But yesterday I think we were too late. Judging was over, they had locked up the building and everyone had gone home. So I didn’t get to see shit. 

I don’t think I won anything, anyway, because I’ve heard some scuttlebutt about “these people who monopolize the categories” and how that discouragers new people from entering. Which I can kind of understand. I mean, I entered a couple of years ago not knowing the first thing about any of it, and I’ll bet that if I had known that there was some knitter in town who “just won every year, year after year”, I probably wouldn’t have entered anything, either. But this year they actually made you put your name on the entry tickets, the one’s that are attached to the item for judging, and I kind of heard that this was so that the “same people who keep winning” wouldn’t win this year. I don’t know if that’s true, but it kind of does make sense. 

But, no matter, I guess….But I do want to know if I won anything. The fair is free admission after 10pm every night, so I may try to keep Paul awake tonight and have him bring me over to see what’s up. I mean, I don’t want to pay $20 admission just to see if I won, (too cheap), so if I do go again, it’ll be after 10 pm. Of course, how much do you want to bet they lock up the domestic arts building at 8pm?

Bu – we did go to the fair yesterday afternoon (free admission because the fair doesn’t technically tart until today.) And we did see some of the strangest stuff – starting with Paul’s bitch and his other family.

So – this is Paul’s bitch, Paul’s bitch’s other wife, and his two kids.

We met him at the fairgrounds over by the food stands (no surprise there!) Either because Paul’s bitch was at the food stands – or that Paul was. I think if you were going to find either of them – that would be the place to look.

After seeing Paul’s bitch – we walked around the midway – just sort of people watching. And you know, I must be really, really old, because tell me what the fuck kind of pants this kid is wearing.

Is this “the style”? Because damn, I’d be hard pressed to wear those things. I am **SO** glad I’m not stylish.

Then we walked through the barn that holds all the “You can Now Buy This!” Stuff, and wouldn’t you know it, you can buy almost anything with Michael Jackson’s image on it. These have to be knockoff kind of things, right? I mean, I’m sure no one got a license to print these things:

And even though this doesn’t have MJ’s actual face on it, only some kind of freakish cartoon image (appropriate, I guess), but there were lots of t-shirts and hats that did. This particular hat would only set you back $12.

Freaking opportunists, right?

So, then we came back home – and I got to tell ya, I REALLY hate those renters across the street. DO you know why I REALLY hate them? Because of shit like this.

And yes, that is EXACTLY what it looks like. The renters across the street had an overflow of cars, and since (as you can see) Paul’s bike was in OUR driveway, and they couldn’t park there (as they normally do), they just decided to make the middle of the road a parking space. THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING ROAD!!! And they were parked there for like 3 FUCKING HOURS. In the MIDDLE OF THE STREET! Who does this? I mean, I know we live on a dead end road, and that I’m the last house (besides zombie lady), but, you know, WHO DOES THIS??

Rude renting assholes – that’s who. 

I hate them. 

And for the last bit of exciting new for the day – Paul, the big, bad tough biker guy, found some kittens that needed a home, and had to bring them home. He’s such a softie, don’t let him kid ya. 

They are really adorable. Even though I am NOT a cat person. 

Two little black angora long haired kittens. I like them because they have that “pushed in” really round face with big eyes. They are sooooo cute. And LOOK! They like yarn – so they can’t be ALL bad, right?

Here are the 2 kittens together:

This is Leroy:

And this is my favorite – Duffy

So – I’m off to obsess some more over whether I not I won anything at the fair. Maybe I’ll make Paul take a nap so he can bring me at 10pm. Damn. This is bugging the shit out of me.

So what’s been happening all summer? Here? It’ rained almost EVERY SINGLE DAY. It’s disgusting. Makes it nice for just staying in the house without looking like you are are a hermit, but I hate the rain. I like to walk with Milo downtown during the summer, but that’s been nearly impossible, since it’s always raining. 

Paul has been getting tattooed all summer. I think he’s addicted. Luckily, it’s because a friend of his has a tattoo gun and fairly good skill at using it, so it hasn’t cost anything, but it’s still annoying, because Paul still has that high school mentality when it comes to tattoo’s and they are all stupid and juvenile. The latest one is a chain around his wrist and upper arm Stupid, right?

And did I tell you Malone Leslie is moving? Yup, leaving the state. That sucks for me, but, unfortunately I can’t hog tie her and make her stay. So now she will be Champion Leslie – something she can’t be in Malone, I guess. 

O, I’m just nervously awaiting bringing my stuff to the fair. I’m second guessing everything now – that’s’ what I do this last week before the fair starts – sit here and reconsider everything and worry that it isn’t right. I did finish the little girl’s sweater, finally. So it’s ready. 

In other news. Have you seen this site? It’s 100 Abandoned Houses – with all the houses being in the Detroit area. I’m thinking I should do a “100 Abandoned Houses” using houses in Malone. We have some nice ones. And I could also use abandoned businesses – and the Flanagan Hotel. And the deaf school. And pretty much every store that’s ever once been here. Good God.

In home news – I still don’t have a bed. Paul hasn’t finished the headboard yet. Well, he used the headboard for the footboard – so we *have* a headboard, it just isn’t on the correct side of the bed. So it looks funky – because the bed looks like it’s facing the wrong way. And the pipes aren’t all strung across the ceiling yet – but I’m thinking that’s a good thing. The sewing room is a complete disaster because last weekend was the First Annual Malone Town Wide garage sale – and I went. I only went to one house, though, because that was the one that advertised that they had yarn, and well, how could I not go to that one first? And they had yarn all right. I got 11 huge garbage bags absolutely stuffed full of yarn – for $10. *AND* the lady threw in all the knitting books I had grabbed for free. She jut said “Oh, you can just take those.” So I have 20 or so garbage bags of yarn sitting in the middle of the sewing room floor. And I have absolutely no place to store them. No place. Every nook, cranny, shelf and horizontal surface in the sewing room is piled high with yarn already. So it’s a disaster area. I need some Martha Stewart type to come in here and organize everything for me. I don’t know how you look that up in the phone book, though. 

Things I’ve been ranting about: 

Televisions. Do you know you can’t buy little 13 inch TV’s anymore? My TV in the computer room finally shit the bed, and I went looking for a small 13 inch TV to replace it. Not happening. Does no one buy these things anymore? 

The Bells of Malone: For some unknown reason this one church in Malone (the one with the loudest speaker system, I guess – so they were elected), plays these religious songs and patriotic songs for hours at a time, non stop and at their loudest level. It’s downright tortuous. I don’t know why, and I don’t know who the hell to complain to – I mean, who do you complain to about a Church? God? 

Demolition Derby Man: The guy whose backyard faces our dead end street has been working all summer on this car he is getting ready for the Demolition Derby. All day and all night he revs the engine, bangs on the body of the car and otherwise makes all kinds of noise. I’m thinking if he wants to just fix up this car only to put it in the demolition derby and have it destroyed, well, he can just give me a hammer and I’ll go over there and do some demolition on the fucking thing. 

OK – so now it’s your turn. What have you been doing so far this summer – and what have you been ranting about – OH!! And that’s the other thing I’ve been ranting about – WordPress changed the Spam filter, I think, and a lot of you are having your comments go straight to SPAM. It started with Val, so I blame her. She emailed me and said “What’s happening to my comments?” And I went and looked in the Spam filter, and there they all were. So if your comments don’t show up, email me and let me know and I’ll go looking for them. And I’ll try to fiddle with the filter some more.

Gail is right – I MUST show you my fair entries. There’s a bunch of them -and it’s been what I’ve been busy, busy, busy with. I haven’t even been posting in AFCA much anymore, since trying to get everything ready. I kind of did the same thing I did last year, I went to he Fair site to see if the categories had changed any, and realized the deadline was like THAT FRIDAY. So I had to scramble, which is what I *DIDN’T* want to do. 

But, I got most everything done. I’m just now sewing together the kid’s sweater.

So, here’s the newest things that I don’t think you’ve seen.

The Kids Mittens: OK – so I haven’t made mittens in like 20 years. But I thought these were cute – although they are big. Really big. If I make them again, they have to be like HALF this size. But I like the cable pattern on the front that makes a snowman. Cute!

Then there’s the Upside Down Flower hat. If you look at the hat from the top, it’s supposed to look like a flower. The “hat” part is like the petals, and the “leaves and stem” are sticking out the top. I don’t know. It’s cute, and I’m putting it in the fair under the “Kids Hat” category.

OK – then we have the “Kids Scarf category – and for this one I made an alligator scarf – and I stole eyes from one of Milo’s stuffed animals to use as the alligator’s eyes. I really like the alligator scarf.

Then we have the sewed stuff, not too much of that – a sleeping sacque, a romper and a shirt and pants. That’s it for the sewed stuff. I should have made a bonnet like the one I made for Val’s little girl, the lace and silk one, but I didn’t. 

And the “biggest” thing is the 3 piece layette. The one that I’ve won for the last 2 years. I’m not sure if this one is going to win. I’m not quite sure if I like it, or like the color, or maybe it’s just that it TOOK SO LONG to make that I’m just sick of it, but here it is.

The bootees:

The Bonnet

The sweater.

Kind of close up detail of the “flower” pattern on the side of the sweater. This flower pattern is on each side and in the middle of the back, with rows of cables along each side of the flower.

So, that’s what I’ve been busy doing. The above stuff is in addition to the afghan, the crocheted baby ABC blanket, the ladies scarf and the kids sweater (which isn’t sewn together yet). Also the stripey sock kids sweater, and the adult’s hat.

Altogether I entered 18 things. We’ll see how many ribbons I get out of that. Let me know what you think – do you like the orange set?

Dear People Across the Street:

1. Just how loud do you need the music in the car when you are driving around? HINT: If I can hear you coming when you turn the corner to come down the street, it’s too loud. And yes, I know I sound like my mother, and I know that she used to tell me “Turn that crap down!!” and I hated it, but guess what? She was right – disco music sucked. And you know what? So does that rap crap you listen to.
2. When you get drunk on Friday and Saturday nights and call a cab to take you to the bar once you are liquored up enough, please keep in mind this simple fact: When you call a cab – they generally actually come to your house. There’s absolutely no reason for the cab to have to sit outside your front door honking the horn for 20 damned minutes at 11 o’cock at night. It shouldn’t be like this huge god damned surprise to you that they are there. You called them – keep an eye out for them.
3. I realize you don’t have a driveway. But your lack of one should have been clear to you when you rented the place. That does not mean that MY driveway is available for you to use as “overflow” when you are having company. No, they can’t park in my driveway. And yes, I AM going to ask you to move your car. This should not elicit eye rolling and impatient remarks of “Geez, just a minute – damn – what a bitch” when I pound on your door and ask you to move. I may be a bitch, but I’m a bitch with a driveway. And a telephone – and don’t think I won’t call the tow truck.
4. When you bring strange men home from the bar on the weekends – please ask them not to piss in the front yard. Because that’s just nasty. And nobody wants to see that.

Thank You. BTW – I realize you are on a short term lease. Don’t think I’m not counting the days until October 1st. I think the entire street will have a party when you leave. And HAHAHA! I WILL liet them park in my driveway. Even the ones that piss in the front yard.

Your Across the Street Neighbors

So – let me tell you about ANOTHER thing that pisses me off – because surely you don’t hear enough about what pisses me off, right?

Paul. Paul pisses me off. 

Because he has these “things”. These little habits and peccadilloes that are enough to drive me right outside my fucking mind. 

Like the fridge. 

See, I can’t buy milk around here that lasts more than 3 or 4 days. Goes bad after that. I buy the small (quart?) sizes of milk, because I don’t really use a lot of milk, but invariably, when I go to use it 4 days after I bought it, it’s spoiled. Something about the milk round here.

BUT – if PAUL sees the spoiled milk in the fridge before I do, oh fuck. He takes everything in the fridge, EVERYTHING – and throws it out. EVERYTHING. Eggs, jars of mayo, relish, tin cans of maple syrup, salad dressing, plastic bowls of butter – everything – and throws it out.

WHY???? Because now everything in the fridge is contaminated. Contaminated by the spoiled milk spores.

It’s fucking aggravating to have to replace shit like maple syrup and relish every month because the last shit got contaminated by the invisible spoiled milk spores.

Idiot.

I’ve just stopped buying milk – I don’t even bother anymore. Milk is too fucking expensive for me.

Is that enough to drive anyone mad?

And no, I still don’t have a bedroom. Paul actually got the bed set up – but now he’s “thinking about” the headboard. He took the headboard that came with the bed and made that a footboard, and now he’s “thinking about” the headboard he’s going to make. Someday. 

But we do still have water pipes strewn all over the ceiling and walls. And attached to the ceilings and walls. And mounted to the ceilings and walls. 

What the hell ever. 

I promise to get a picture of the water pipes in all their goofy fucking glory. As soon as the masterpiece is complete. 

In the meantime, when I’m not out buying more maple syrup and relish or dodging water pipes in the bedroom, I continue to kit. 

For the last 5 years or so I’ve been a member of e-rewards. They have you fill out surveys and you get “e-bucks”. Which are good for things like subscriptions to magazines and discounts at FTD.com and shit like that that you’ll never actually use. Then they started offering “Border Bucks” on your “Border Reward card.” Free books? Now this I could use. But we don’t have a Borders around here – so I couldn’t get the Border Rewards membership card you needed to have to have your e-reward Bucks transferred to your Borders Rewards account. So my good, dear friend V sent me the card she went and picked up for me at Borders. Love V!!!

So, once I had the Borders Reward card in my hot little hands, I transferred my e-rewards bucks to my new Border rewards account – and I got $100 worth of free books! Woo Hoo! So, I ordered a bunch of new knitting books.

They finally came last Friday – and my favorite of all of them was “Itty Bitty Hats”. ****SOOOOOO***** cute!!!!

I immediately cast on the “Upside Down Daisy” hat. And how fast was *this* to make???” I got the book on Friday, cast it on Friday night and was done the thing Saturday morning:

I think Val’s little girl is going to have to have one of these this winter. 

And yes, I finished another square for the afghan. That’s 4 done. Ugh. I need to get my ass in gear on this, right? And I also am making a pair of mittens for the fair – that’s’ another category down – along with :”baby hats”, because that Daisy hat is going to have to go in the fair, too. Right? Is it cute enough to go in the fair?

So?? What has everyone been up to? Me? Yeah, I’ve been knitting, mostly. And I’ve gotten quite a few things done, too. More on that later. I’ve also been sick (of course), spent a small amount of time in the hospital (of course), and I got sick of Twitter. (I wish everyone else would, too.)

My main complaint at the moment is that with the nice weather has come troubles with the DishTV . We’ve had this thing for three years and never had a problem in the summer besides a few trimming of freshly blooming trees. Yeah, that didn’t work so well this year. The fucking thing doesn’t work at all if you want to watch any channel besides local channels. Which is a pain in the goddamned ass. I hate it. 

I called DishTV and the guy came out to see what the problem was and he says “Yeah, you need to move the dish. Here, de-limb this huge pine tree here, and we can mount the dish up in the tree somewhere.” OK – so I don’t think this is going to work, because even though I don’t know what the problem is, I’m quite sure it’s not that. The Dish guy says that the dish was never installed correctly to begin with – since it’s only on like a 4 foot pole that the guy stuck in the ground without securing it. But, whatever. The minute he said “De-limb this tree…..” My immediate question was “How much of this do *we* have to do before you can do what *you* have to do?” And when he said “You need to de-limb the tree yourselves.” I knew that it was bye-bye upper channels, because if I have to rely on Paul to get this done, it ain’t getting done. 

And I was right. It ain’t done, despite Paul saying “Yeah, I’ll do that this weekend…and Kim can call you guys back on Monday to come and move the dish.” I knew I wouldn’t be making that call on Monday. And I didn’t. And there’s no evidence it’s getting done any time soon. 

I hate summer. Makes my TV not work. 

But, on Sunday, Paul was out back wiggling the pole that the dish is mounted on (incorrectly), and I was yelling out the window telling him “No, that’s not helping…” When all of a sudden we heard this huge “boom” – like a tree had fallen in the back 40 – that’s what it sounded like. Then we heard a woman’s voice yelling “OH MY GOD.” And Paul ran into the backyard to see what the hell was going on. It wasn’t anything, really, just another example of what you get when you combine the stellar parenting skills of Malonians with a 4 year old kid, a car, and a backyard that includes a drop off.

Nice, eh? The kid wasn’t hurt, which is a good thing. But it took them a while to get the car up over the ditch. It went down a lot easier than it came up. 

Did you all like the picture of Phil Spector sans hair? Mostly, I loved Rachelle’s comment “They took his liberty, they took his dignity – now they’ve taken his HAIR.” I think that’s her best sound bite, yet. Of course, remember, this is the same Rachelle that INSISTED during the first trial that Spector’s hair was real – that she should know, because SHE was the one who styled it for him. Lying bitch. Kind of makes you wonder – if they’d lie about this, maybe they’re lying about Phil shooting that woman, right? 

I’m so glad he’s in jail. So – Val, in all her do-goodiness, asked me to make a sweater or something for he jamboree she was helping with for one of her friends who has a little boy who is very sick. So I made this sweater for her. 

Came out cute. I wasn’t sure about the pattern, so I made the sweater in a really cheap acrylic from my stash. Now that I know how cute the sweater turns out, I think I’ll make it again in a nice wool or superwash and give it to Val’s little girl this winter. 

Then, I decided that I had too much sock yarn for someone who doesn’t knit socks at all. So I took some self striping sock yarn and made a little sweater that I shall enter in the fair in the category “Baby Sweater”. I *love* this sweater. 

Paul likes this sweater, too. He said “Make one in MY size! I’d wear that!” I told him “Yeah. fuck you – go de-limb the tree.”

There’s a couple of other things I’ve made, too. Including a really cute hat. And I finished another square for the afghan. And at the moment I’m making mittens. I haven’t made mittens in 20 years.

More on that later this week. Sitting here typing all this out gets me exhausted. I think I need a better chair. Maybe that would help?

Happy Mothers Day!

In honor of the day, I went to this site called makemebabies.com, and put in a picture of myself, and put in a picture of Paul and came up with a composite photo of what our imagined child would look like. 

Take a look…..and yeah, that’s a picture of me on the left when I was about 3 years old. The picture on the right is Paul – not when he was about 3 years old, though. I’m glad the potential child has Paul’s eyes. Paul has awesome green, bedroom like eyes. 

In other picture news – this is my favorite, most awesome picture of the week. It’s little Preemie baby and the dog he lives with waiting for Preemie dad to come through the door. I love this picture. 

And since it seems we are on a roll – here’s my favorite “graph of the week”. How true is this??

So – now everyone go to makemebabies.com – make a baby with someone – either famous or not – and post the link here so we can all laugh.

So the camera came yesterday!!! Woo Hoo!!! I really, really like it. Although it is so small and thin that I keep worrying I’m going to drop it. The LCD screen is HUGE compared to my old camera. Much easier to see, that’s for sure. I haven’t played with the video features yet, only because I really do like my DVD camcorder, and doubt that I’ll ever use the camera for that, but I have taken a few pictures with the new camera, and I really like the way they’ve come out, considering that the house hasn’t lightened up at all.

In other news, this week Val asked me to make some “growth charts” for her kids. We went to Joann’s and picked out some “Cars” and “Dora” fabric, and I used that to make the charts. I did the “Cars” one first, and it came out kind of huge. I mean, I did attempt to make these without a pattern. But I still liked it, even though it was huge.  I stuffed the sides with fiberfill to make it “less huge”. Here’s a picture of the Cars one – and the picture was taken with the old camera – so excuse the suckiness of the picture.

Val said that she would send me some pictures of Luke using it, and I’m sure those will be better pictures.

I made the Dora one second, after learning my mistakes on the Cars one. The Dora one wasn’t so HUGE. Ad is didn’t have to stuff the sides. It came out pretty cute, too.

Paul contributed to the project by providing the dowels that go through the top for hanging. 

Oh – and then Val and I went to KFC. Yeahhh!!!!!

I haven’t worked on the afghan squares at all, I’ve been busy working on the 3 piece layette set, which is TIME CONSUMING – only because it’s one of those patterns that you actually have to pay attention to and count and make sure the pattern repeats come out even – it’s not just a mindless “sit there and knit” kind of pattern. So, I haven’t gotten very far, despite working on it for two or three days. But you have to tell me how you like the color. I’m using my much loved Dalegarn Baby ULL – the same yarn I used for the winning deep red set last year. Only this is a red/orange color. I really like it, but then, I like baby thins that aren’t the traditional pink/blue/lilac/mint green/yellow that only seems to get used for baby things. I like “outside the box” colors. But let me know what *you* think.

Oh – and this picture was taken with the new camera. Yeahh!!! Go ahead, tell me how *awesome* the picture is with the new camera. Because Paul won’t – I showed him a couple of pictures and he alternated between “uh – huh” and “looks the same to me…”

He wont’ be saying that when I take pictures of the pipes in the bedroom and they come out good enough to see how stupid it looks. 

So – have a good Sunday – back to knitting for me. If you want updates during the day as to what I’m doing and thinking, you can follow me on Twitter. I’m darwinexception there, too.